8bitagent wrote:JackRiddler wrote: but as the first shot in the next round of the perpetual wars.
.
And how does one do that without a massive terror attack on the homefront?
This I actually felt was necessary prior to September 11th, which is why I was honestly expecting such a thing -- a "Reichstag Fire" event -- on the basis of the Bush mob seizing power in a fraudulent election and the revival of the Central Asian great game. This is not necessary today. In case you haven't noticed, US people barely noticed that a new front was opened in Libya, and they don't even know Yemen exists. What's to stop escalations or new campaigns, other than overstretch or military defeat? However, as those are factors, the crew in the cockpit right now is looking to maintain the ongoing wars, not to open new fronts. We'll see about Pakistan. I'm expecting status quo -- already murderous -- with lots of kabuki diplomatic conflicts.
When Russian FSB carried out the massive 9-99 apartment complex series of bombings, even getting caught planting the fourth bomb, they knew it was
the only way to get international support behind their brutal destruction of Chechnya that left countless dead.
They never cared a crap about international support for that. Never. Yeltsin's first war on Chechnya had failed because of Russians hating it and hating him. Do you remember that? Do you even know about the mid 1990s Chechnya war? The mothers' protests, as they were called, did that in, forced a withdrawal. The point in 1999 was to mobilize Russians in support of a second Chechnya war -- also to deify the FSB's wonderman Putin as the solution for a Russia seemingly in terminal crisis. It worked.
We got TSA putting their hands down the pants of little children now under Obama, we never saw *that* under Bush. As many of us feared, they are ratcheting up the "big brother" stuff.
Slowly phasing it in.."oh Apple does it, so its all for your hip benefit".
You're not really going to want to debate *what* we saw under Bush in the way of Homeland insanity and repressions, as opposed to what we've seen under Obama? The roundups right after September 11th, all the fake warnings and color-coded panics, renditions, torture, children at Gitmo? Some things have been phased out, but there is a remarkable continuity in the last two years and a continuing salami tactic of expanding the surveillance and control systems, and it's absurd to suggest there's a radical new quality to it that's especially Obama's. (And who mentioned shoes? They've been making me take off my goddamn shoes for almost 10 years now.)
But more to point, the traction and millage of "Ghadafy is killing his own people" only went so far, and the US had to scale back the Libyan war.
Huh? Who forced the US to scale back on Libya? Did you see any protests? Fact is, the US has been ambivalent about Libya from the beginning. That's not an excuse for its participation. UK, France and Italy led the charge politically and now militarily.
Do you think a "Big One" solves the problem that the US military is overstretched and already draining too much of what's left of the Treasury? They're already spending a trillion dollars a year and the corporations are plundering too much of it to actually field a force that can do much more than what is already in play.
But...given the INSANE mass propaganda we're now seeing, the left lock stock in the blind flag waving position;
You always say this and it's bullshit. A bunch of Obama cheerleaders at the White House yesterday is not "the left." I don't know what you define as "the left" but I see many signs of growing popular mobilization against the class war, and opposition to the military budgets will go with that as it grows. Because that part is unavoidable. War eats any part of this nation's surplus wealth that the super-rich don't rake in as rentier income and plunder.
and with every security agency on steroids and ready to go...what else could be used to justify more war?
You are well aware that any old bullshit will do: found it on OBL's laptop. They're probably not looking for too many new fronts right now. They have their hands full. They're losing proxies, and that's trouble.
Remember wen the head of the military said youd have to be crazy to do another war in the Middle East?
Who do you mean, Abizaid, Casey, Fallon? These guys had to go, but guess what? Their views prevailed within the Pentagon, and an attack on Iran came off the table by the end of 2007.
You will see continued bombings and attempts to continue the current force commitments in Afpak and to stay in Iraq. That's horrible for the bombed and the occupied. You will not see new ground force commitments. At least, I don't believe that's the plan, because I don't see the logic or the reasons for it you say you do.
And in this case, I certainly hope I'm right!
.